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News article on: Basketball
The youngest coach
But apart from his motivational skills and his record as the youngest ever ACB winning coach, Pascual will be remembered as the coach who delighted the Palau fans with his attractive brand of basketball. After a five year title drought, the Palau boiled over with excitement at the classification for the Final Four in Berlin, the ACB league title and the wonderful performances produced by the team throughout the season.
The year of Xavi Pascual
The job done by Xavi Pascual in charge of Regal Barça was impressive. He became the youngest coach in the history of the game to win the ACB league, despite the added pressure of already being part of the Barça coaching staff.
Even more impressive was his ability to make a group of largely new faces work together as a single
unit.
As a coach Pascual has been faithful to his ideas, and an untiring and methodical worker
capable of transmitting the Barça spirit to a highly varied squad. In his first complete season in
charge of Regal Barça, he made them the most attractive basketball team in Spain and in Europe.
Though it’s true that that the consistency of players such as Navarro, Vázquez and Ilyasova
made a huge contribution to the success of the team, Pascual imposed a winning mentality that
proved to be one of the keys to the progress of the team.
Psychologist and motivator
The work of a trainer goes beyond the purely tactical or technical and the Catalan Regal
Barça coach Pascual has shown himself to be an excellent motivator. This was especially obvious in
the big games against the powerhouses of European basketball. Teams such as Panathinaikos
–beaten both in the Palau and in Athens- Real Madrid, Montepaschi Siena and Maccabi Tel-Aviv
– who Barça hadn’t beaten at home for 18 seasons.
And he deserves a special mention for the games against TAU. At the beginning of the season,
in the Super Cup, it seemed that the team from Vitoria was in a different league. Then, midway
through the season, in the Kings Cup, this superiority looked set to dominate in Spain and in
Europe. Despite the initial defeat in the quarterfinals of the Euroleague , Pascual convinced his
men of their ability – with the help of a motivational video – and led them to five
wins and buried the myth of TAU’s invincibility. A couple of months later, he did the same in
the final of the ACB.
Fixtures 11/12
